“What began as a new form of intellectual authority, rooted in a devoutly apolitical worldview,” critic (and former Hillary Clinton speechwriter) Stephen Metcalf wrote in 2017, “nudged easily into an ultra-reactionary politics.” To partisan thinkers of this sect, neoliberalism is the root of all the world’s problems, thus framing Bill Clinton as the catalyst for pretty much every dilemma of the twenty-first century (including the eventual election of Donald Trump). For this, Clinton is disparaged, and the fact that he embraced centrism by design pushes that dislike toward hatred.
